


Paint the Stars

by ViolettaValery



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Body Paint, Fluff, Home can be a person, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 06:15:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20634458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViolettaValery/pseuds/ViolettaValery
Summary: “A starmap?” he asks. He understands now why Michael’s chosen the colors he has, covering his skin in stardust.“Yes,” Michael confirms shyly, focusing his eyes on a spot at Alex’s hip.“Hmm. And where’d you put the North Star?” he asks mischievously.





	Paint the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Jess, darlin', thank you for inspiring this. Enjoy!

He’d scoffed at first, when Rosa had encouraged him to take up painting as therapy. Now, several weeks later, it’s become a routine he doesn’t think he could survive without. Several times a week, they set up canvases in the backyard of his cabin, put on one of Rosa’s mixtapes (she still insists on making _tapes, _so Alex has had to dig out an ancient cassette player he didn’t even know he owned), and pain.

Rosa’s art is…chaotic. Oh, she can painstakingly draw careful, meticulous patterns, repeat the same design over and over again, color inside the lines, if she needs to. But given free rein, she splashes paint over the canvas like a madwoman, joyous and unrestrained.

Rebellious.

Alex, on the other hand, is meticulous. He outlines before he paints. He spends ages selecting colors and oscillating between color schemes. He leaves nothing to chance.

(“That’s not art. That’s just using up paint,” Rosa insists).

But she indulges him, until she gets so fed up with him hesitating between two nearly-identical shades of blue that she snaps.

“Just _let go,_” she insists. “Paint with your heart, not your head.”

“I don’t know how to do that,” he protests, and she fixes him with an unimpressed look.

“Yes, you do.” She pokes him in the sternum with a finger. “I know for a fact you do.”

He sighs.

Reaching for his favorite colors – the sparkling hues, bright blues and cosmic purples – he paints chaotically. He keeps painting even after Rosa leaves, called away by Liz. He gets so lost in covering his canvas with riot of stars and glittering swirls that he doesn’t hear Michael drive up, only alerted to his husband’s presence when he hears him clearing his throat.

“What’re you painting?” Michael asks.

He turns around and takes a second to take Michael in. He’s breathtaking as always.

Then again, maybe Alex is just smitten.

“You,” he admits.

Michael frowns.

“Stars and chaos,” Alex explains. “That’s how I think of you. Devastating and incomprehensible and the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Michael kisses him, Alex’s protests that he’s covered in paint are quickly smothered. “Well, I’m covered in grease,” Michael points out, and that’s that. The kiss turns heated almost immediately, and Michael doesn’t wait to start tugging Alex’s shirt off. Alex helps him along without complaint. 

It needed to be washed anyway.

“So,” Michael asks between kisses to Alex’s neck. “Do I get a turn at painting?”

Alex raises his eyebrows, though the effect is rather lost when Michael’s mouth is attached to his neck.

“I don’t have any spare canvases. This one was the last – “

Michael gets that gleam in his eye that means he’s going to do something ridiculous, stupid and brilliant all at once. “Yes, you do.”

He tugs Alex towards the cabin, the painting supplies floating behind them, and pushes Alex onto the bed. Alex sprawls and lets Michael undress him the rest of the way, lifting his hips obligingly to let Michael tug his paint-covered pants off.

Michael glances questioningly down at the prosthetic, and Alex nods. It’s been paining him, and he doesn’t plan on going anywhere today anyway.

Michael removes it with painstaking gentleness, and, with that same gentleness, he rolls Alex over onto his stomach.

Alex notices as Michael reaches for the paint that he’s chosen the same glittering colors that Alex favors, the ones that sparkle like shards of glass fallen from the cosmos to Earth.

He sighs contentedly and sinks into the soft mattress, pillowing his head on his arms. As Michael settles above him, he relaxes instantly, knowing that he’s loved, that he’s safe. He has no idea what Michael is painting onto his skin, what this whim is that’s possessed him, but he knows he can entrust himself completely to Michael’s hands.

The paintbrush tickles pleasantly against his skin, and he giggles as Michael methodically draws long lines over his skin. He laughs as one of the lines continues over his back and down his buttocks, edging towards the crease between his butt cheeks before curling over his thigh.

“_What _could you possibly be painting?” he muses, though it is exhilarating not to know, to simply surrender himself to the person who will always catch him when he falls.

“You’ll see,” Michael says vaguely, turning him over, and Alex lets himself be handled, pliant as putty in Michael’s arms. When Michael parts his thighs, they fall apart easily, and Michael settles in the place made for him between them. He continues the lines he’s started, covering the insides of Alex’s thighs in paint, then tracing up to his hips.

Alex closes his eyes, drifting pleasantly and feeling infinitely at peace under the touch of Michael’s calloused hands, so rough and so gentle all at once.

Finally, after it feels like Michael has covered every inch of his skin, he opens his eyes again and tries to survey his skin. It looks like –

“A starmap?” he asks. He understands now why Michael’s chosen the colors he has, covering his skin in stardust. 

“Yes,” Michael confirms shyly, focusing his eyes on a spot at Alex’s hip.

“Hmm. And where’d you put the North Star?” he asks mischievously.

“Here.” Michael’s hand goes to Alex’s dick, which quickly stirs, Michael’s ministrations having already drawn its attention somewhat.

Alex can’t help laughing joyously. “My dick is your guiding light?” he asks.

But he understands. When they’re together, skin to skin, and Michael is inside him, he always feels like he’s found his way. Like he’s no longer lost. He can understand if it’s the same for Michael.

“It’s never been the same, with anyone else,” Michael confesses, and that, too, Alex understands.

Some stars shine brighter than others.

“And your home?” he asks. “Where is it?”

Alex knows about Antar now, courtesy of the screaming match they’d had, begun by Michael shouting “Why do you care that I’m leaving the planet? You always leave _me _anyway!”

Then Alex had screamed, “Because I love you! I love you, present tense, and the idea of you leaving me behind destroys me!”

Now, there’s a launch date somewhere in their future. Every day, Michael labors away at finishing his ship so the two of them can discover the place he’s from.

Together.

In this moment, though, in answer to Alex’s question, Michael presses a hand to Alex’s chest.

“Here.”

“I’m serious. Where’d you put Antar?”

“I told you,” Michael says, removing his hand so Alex can see the starburst Michael’s painted over his heart. “Here.”


End file.
